Luannan, Hebei: Steel Shovel Production from "Family Workshop" to "World Base"

On April 17th, two containers carrying 20000 steel shovel products were transported from Luannan County, Tangshan City, Hebei Province to Tianjin Port, and loaded onto ships to distribution ports such as Los Angeles Port and Houston Port in the United States. They will enter major supermarkets in the United States in the future.
The production model, which started in the late 1980s as a family workshop, is a true portrayal of the initial stage of steel shovel production in Luannan County. The technical level is low, the yield is small, and the variety is single. There are only two types of ordinary steel shovels, flat and pointed, mainly used for domestic agricultural production. The appearance is not beautiful, and it belongs to the typical "ugly duckling".
After more than 40 years of development, the steel shovel industry in Songdaokou Town, Luannan County has long transformed from a "family workshop" to a modern large factory.
According to statistics from the Luannan County Government, the Luannan steel shovel industry has formed a large industrial cluster centered around Songdaokou Town, with over 180 enterprises and 13 enterprises above designated size. There are 26 self operated export rights enterprises, with an annual production of 280 million steel shovels and hardware tools, accounting for 85% of the domestic market and over 90% of the national export share. The annual operating revenue is 11 billion yuan and profits and taxes are 520 million yuan. Our products are sold throughout the country and are also exported to over 140 countries and regions including Southeast Asia, Europe, North America, and Africa, making us known as the "world's steel shovel export base
Nowadays, steel shovels are no longer ordinary agricultural shovels in people's eyes. With the expansion of export business, the shovel making industry has begun to refine into multiple varieties and purposes, including hardware tools, garden tools, and gardening tools, which are becoming more and more beautiful. Each model is developed and designed according to customer needs, like a piece of handicraft, including a huge snow shovel and a three or four centimeter sized flower pot loosening shovel, which is small and exquisite Beautiful Fu Changyi, President of the Steel Shovel Association in Songdaokou Town, Luannan County, said.
This year, due to the COVID-19 in Tangshan earlier, the local steel shovel enterprises pressed the "pause button", which affected the production progress of export orders. After the epidemic was lifted, various departments of the local government made every effort to solve the problems of labor, transportation of various raw and auxiliary materials and products in the production process for enterprises, creating conditions for their resumption of work and production. Currently, all steel shovel enterprises in the county have resumed work and production, with a resumption rate of 100%.